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Post by Satchmo on Feb 14, 2018 8:44:51 GMT -6
I think the crossbow crowd deserves a place in the hunting crowd though I've never used one. I also fully believe that the population problems in both WI and MN will not get solved without major changes in the rifle harvest. Eliminating party hunting and multiple doe tags would take care of over harvest in a hurry, and make this bow hunter vs crossbows a mute point. I too have experienced a dramatic fall of the herd size in Barron county, WI over the last 25 years. I went from seeing 20 deer opening morning to seeing only a hand full in 9 days. I watched the implementation of the "T" zone to bonus permits to herd control status, absolutely demolish the herd in that area, and the food shelf program only enhanced this slaughter by giving the game hogs a place to dump those extra carcasses. It wasn't the crossbow guys that decimated the herd. It was the back-assed thinking by gun hunters that thought.... if the DNR says we can shoot 'em, then I will. Yee Haaaw
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Post by kabic on Feb 14, 2018 8:55:38 GMT -6
I don't have any statistics to back it up, but I feel there is a percentage of gun hunters who are seeing a bunch of nice bucks being killed by archery hunters and have decided to take up crossbow hunting. Their thought process is to get a chance at a good buck because more and more of the nice bucks are not making it to the gun season (at least in their minds).
Are there any statistics on archery licensee sold before the cross bow change? Was it increasing or staying steady?
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Post by terrifictom on Feb 14, 2018 10:29:51 GMT -6
Yea, but your gun hunter numbers and harvest are down significantly. I know, that's kind of my point, we still need to increase the herd in MANY areas of the Forest Zones of Central and Northern WI and killing that many more deer per year is not helping in that regard. And, that is without even mentioning that the buck:doe ratio in WI is already slightly skewed in some areas, all while, as Tom stated himself, the available antlerless tags have increased, but the doe kill has not increased at the same rate as the buck kill, in fact it has went down a good bunch(which is good for getting the numbers back up, but...that math should not be working that way), this will tend to skew short term buck:doe ratios even further. It is just as enjoyable to me to see a fork horn or basket 8 walk under my stand as any other deer, but when they are being taken off the landscape at a record pace(according to the kill percentages), I no longer have those deer around to walk under my tree. What I would like to see is the registration numbers for each year from Oct 25th thru Nov 10th. I'm betting a good number of those extra buck kills come during that period, further cementing the fact that deer are just easier to kill with a xbow, especially when they are at their most vulnerable. Might as well give everyone an '06 or .308 for those 15 days. And in my case, it has nothing to do with "greed among the bowhunters" wanting the rut for themselves, because I only gun hunt anymore. I just want to see more than a deer or 2 over nine days for a goddamn change, and any increase in the kill right now is detrimental to that end, regardless if it is bucks, does, or fawns. Just did the math for the County and Zone I hunt in(which is only really half the county due to the split Farmland/Forest Zones), and there has been an extra 46 bucks killed per year since the xbow rules were put in affect, doesn't seem like much, but considering I am in a Forest Zone area with very low deer densities to begin with, this seems like it is not a good thing when improving overall deer numbers is what the CDAC has recommended. I just feel that xbows should be moved into the late archery season only. Dale could you look up what the buck kill went up in your area for guns for the same period and post it?
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Post by wiscwhip on Feb 16, 2018 13:02:22 GMT -6
I know, that's kind of my point, we still need to increase the herd in MANY areas of the Forest Zones of Central and Northern WI and killing that many more deer per year is not helping in that regard. And, that is without even mentioning that the buck:doe ratio in WI is already slightly skewed in some areas, all while, as Tom stated himself, the available antlerless tags have increased, but the doe kill has not increased at the same rate as the buck kill, in fact it has went down a good bunch(which is good for getting the numbers back up, but...that math should not be working that way), this will tend to skew short term buck:doe ratios even further. It is just as enjoyable to me to see a fork horn or basket 8 walk under my stand as any other deer, but when they are being taken off the landscape at a record pace(according to the kill percentages), I no longer have those deer around to walk under my tree. What I would like to see is the registration numbers for each year from Oct 25th thru Nov 10th. I'm betting a good number of those extra buck kills come during that period, further cementing the fact that deer are just easier to kill with a xbow, especially when they are at their most vulnerable. Might as well give everyone an '06 or .308 for those 15 days. And in my case, it has nothing to do with "greed among the bowhunters" wanting the rut for themselves, because I only gun hunt anymore. I just want to see more than a deer or 2 over nine days for a goddamn change, and any increase in the kill right now is detrimental to that end, regardless if it is bucks, does, or fawns. Just did the math for the County and Zone I hunt in(which is only really half the county due to the split Farmland/Forest Zones), and there has been an extra 46 bucks killed per year since the xbow rules were put in affect, doesn't seem like much, but considering I am in a Forest Zone area with very low deer densities to begin with, this seems like it is not a good thing when improving overall deer numbers is what the CDAC has recommended. I just feel that xbows should be moved into the late archery season only. Dale could you look up what the buck kill went up in your area for guns for the same period and post it? Sorry Tom, just saw this. It didn't go up. The gun harvest data for the 3 years prior to xbow use averaged 712 antlered deer and the 3 years after full xbow use was legalized had an average harvest of 682 bucks per year. That is an average of 30 less gun kills per year since xbow was legalized. Those numbers lead me to believe that the unlimited use of xbows does affect the gun harvest in my area.
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Post by wiscwhip on Feb 16, 2018 13:07:31 GMT -6
Total 3 year antlered harvest went from 971 before xbows to 986 after xbows. 15 deer doesn't seem like much, but those increased kills can be directly connected to the new xbow rules, IMO.
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Post by terrifictom on Feb 16, 2018 13:45:03 GMT -6
Total 3 year antlered harvest went from 971 before xbows to 986 after xbows. 15 deer doesn't seem like much, but those increased kills can be directly connected to the new xbow rules, IMO. With 2 back to back mild winters, don't you think the deer population has gone up some in your area. That is only 5 more bucks per year or about 1/2 percent increase averaged out over 3 years. IMO that is just a shift in weapon choice.
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Post by batman on Feb 16, 2018 13:48:31 GMT -6
Total 3 year antlered harvest went from 971 before xbows to 986 after xbows. 15 deer doesn't seem like much, but those increased kills can be directly connected to the new xbow rules, IMO. If those kills come from ease of use and unrecorded extra days afield do they throw off the deer number estimates? They would here in MN. Buck harvest is our only herd metric. It would indicate a growing herd and issuing more doe tags when the opposite may be reality.
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Post by terrifictom on Feb 16, 2018 13:48:47 GMT -6
Total 3 year antlered harvest went from 971 before xbows to 986 after xbows. 15 deer doesn't seem like much, but those increased kills can be directly connected to the new xbow rules, IMO. With 2 back to back mild winters, don't you think the deer population has gone up some in your area. That is only 5 more bucks per year or about 1/2 percent increase averaged out over 3 years. IMO that is just a shift in weapon choice. Sorry after re-reading you meant that the average over the 3 years was 986 so the percent would be 1.5 percent
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Post by wiscwhip on Feb 16, 2018 13:51:36 GMT -6
You are reading that wrong, it is 15 bucks per year average, not 5 over the 3 years, but yes, that still seems like a small number at face value. No, I don't feel it has went up much at all because the wolf population keeps increasing at a pretty steady rate and no one really hunts or traps yotes in that area. It is mostly beaver, muskrat, and coon trapping.
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Post by wiscwhip on Feb 16, 2018 13:55:00 GMT -6
Total 3 year antlered harvest went from 971 before xbows to 986 after xbows. 15 deer doesn't seem like much, but those increased kills can be directly connected to the new xbow rules, IMO. If those kills come from ease of use and unrecorded extra days afield do they throw off the deer number estimates? They would here in MN. Buck harvest is our only herd metric. It would indicate a growing herd and issuing more doe tags when the opposite may be reality. This might be the case in the area I hunt as well, given the deer densities are closer to the "MN norm" than they are to the rest of WI. The only nice part is the antlerless tags are now given out at all time lows, so if we could keep the wolves at bay, we could rebound fairly quickly with the lower antlerless kills since the recent rules changes.
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Post by Sandbur on Feb 16, 2018 19:07:29 GMT -6
Total 3 year antlered harvest went from 971 before xbows to 986 after xbows. 15 deer doesn't seem like much, but those increased kills can be directly connected to the new xbow rules, IMO. If those kills come from ease of use and unrecorded extra days afield do they throw off the deer number estimates? They would here in MN. Buck harvest is our only herd metric. It would indicate a growing herd and issuing more doe tags when the opposite may be reality. I am afraid we will be stuck with this metric for the next five and maybe ten years.
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Post by terrifictom on Mar 31, 2018 16:14:23 GMT -6
If those kills come from ease of use and unrecorded extra days afield do they throw off the deer number estimates? They would here in MN. Buck harvest is our only herd metric. It would indicate a growing herd and issuing more doe tags when the opposite may be reality. This might be the case in the area I hunt as well, given the deer densities are closer to the "MN norm" than they are to the rest of WI. The only nice part is the antlerless tags are now given out at all time lows, so if we could keep the wolves at bay, we could rebound fairly quickly with the lower antlerless kills since the recent rules changes. Hey Dale check out this report on deer kill by weapons. Turns out that it is not the crossbow guys that you have to worry about on Public land, the Vertical bow hunters are killing more bucks. Maybe they need to limit the season for Vertical bow hunters on public land .
dnr.wi.gov/topic/Hunt/documents/WeaponUseReport.pdf
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Post by wiscwhip on Mar 31, 2018 17:21:59 GMT -6
I do not doubt that at all tom. I was one of those guys back when I bowhunted. If you find a nice buck running around on a piece of public and can figure out his late summer pattern, there is no better time to hunt that ground than opening weekend and there's always plenty of cover on the trees to hide drawing a vert bow.
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Post by wiscwhip on Mar 31, 2018 17:38:09 GMT -6
I don't really know what the solution is anymore to be honest. Antlerless tags and harvest have been down for a few years now and I don't see any appreciable increase in the deer numbers at all, even in the better areas. Seems it is about the same as it was before the new rules? Densities may have increased by 1 or 2 psm, but it is not anything noticeable in the woods, I know that for sure. With the increasing number of wolves we have had around now for the last 10 years plus. I think the deer struggle to maintain their numbers, much less increase them in any appreciable way, especially in bad winter years with low acorn production. Just not enough crops in the aeea.
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Post by badbrad on Apr 10, 2018 7:16:54 GMT -6
I went to the Marathon Country meeting last night and spoke against the xbow season changes. I'd say it was 60/40 in terms of who spoke out for xbows. Not sure how the voting went. Overall a good meeting.
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